Public awareness of personal hygiene and water conservation issues over the last several years has caused manufacturers of sanitary facility and hygiene devices to develop automatic actuators for sanitary facilities such as toilets and urinals. One purpose of such devices is to eliminate human contact with the surfaces that may contain disease spreading bacteria, and to automatically control the amount of flush water used to eliminate waste.
Such a device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,680,879, titled “Automatic Flush Valve Actuation Apparatus For Replacing Manual Flush Handles.” In particular, the apparatus includes an enclosure containing a drive mechanism, which actuates a plunger pin and a self-contained power source for the drive mechanism. The drive mechanism and power source are connected to a sensor which senses the use of the facility and actuates the drive mechanism to move the plunger pin. The plunger pin pushes the valve stem and the toilet is flushed. The apparatus may be easily installed on a non-tank style toilet by removing the manual flush handle assembly from the toilet valve and securing the apparatus in place of the handle assembly.
Another such device is disclosed in pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/032,442 entitled “Flushing Actuator With Handle.” The disclosed flushing actuator also includes an enclosure containing a drive mechanism and a self-contained power source. The drive mechanism is connected to a sensor, which senses the use of the facility and actuates the drive mechanism, which in turn, pushes down on the handle to flush a toilet. One advantage of this flushing actuator is that it may be installed directly to an existing toilet valve without removing the handle or any other components of the toilet valve.
Both of these automatic flushing actuators are compact, easily installed, and work well on non-tank style toilets. However, neither of these automatic flushing actuators can be used with a tank style toilet. Accordingly, there is a need for an automatic flushing actuator for tank style toilets.
Automatic flushing actuators for tank style toilets are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,603,127 entitled “Auto Flush For Tank Toilet” and U.S. Pat. No. 6,618,864 entitled “Automatic Flushing And Seat Raising Arrangements For Toilets,” both of which are incorporated herein by reference. While these automatic flushing actuators are suitable for their intended use, there remains a need for an automatic flushing apparatus for tank style toilets which is compact, easily installed, adaptable to fit all models of tank style toilets, and vandal proof.